Towards a Quantum Ready workforce:
Young people, still in School have a common interest in pursuing careers and studies that will help them have a good future. The answer today is the old Boy Scouts motto “ Be prepared” followed by the words “for a Quantum World”.
Ever since Richard Feynman first theorized a practical Quantum Computer in 1982, the field has been marked by a wide diversity of opinions – on hardware approaches, scientific theory, the best path to commercialization and more. But one issue has everyone united: There’s a huge shortage of quantum computing talent.
A trained, well-rounded quantum workforce is key to realizing the full practical value of quantum computing.There isn’t a direct pipeline from universities, and there’s fierce competition for the limited talent that is available. Currently, most quantum scientists are from other related fields, despite the highly specialized tasks they perform on the job, such as designing quantum computer shielding systems or building quantum processors.
To continue expanding the quantum ecosystem, we need to grow the number of quantum-literate experts — now. Stakeholders in governments, universities and private companies – have to step up by investing in the budding quantum workforce and encouraging their peers to do the same. We’re entering an increasingly specialized economy, particularly in the quantum industry, and that makes identifying and developing talent tough. The good news is that there are a few fixes we can make to grow the quantum talent pool.
Quantum education has to be approach-agnostic if we want to realize the full potential of the technology. There are many viable theoretical approaches to quantum computing, but going all-in on one method inhibits innovation. Look at the landscape today. IBM is pursuing gate model. Microsoft is going after topological qubits ( which received a slight setback recently). D-wave has built an annealing quantum computer. Each holds its promises and challenges, and each approach requires talent.
Quantum computing holds tremendous business opportunities and will benefit virtually every part of the economy. Many of these areas are critical to act on now, like energy distribution, climate change and drug discovery. Quantum computing’s power to impact nearly every facet of society means that broad investment in our workforce is crucial.
We are in the midst of 2 great revolutions: the 4th Industrial Revolution and the 4th Education Revolution: they have to be responded to coherently and concurrently.
Alvin Toffler had exhorted us to pursue learning, unlearning and re-learning. Understanding the Quantum World is a good project to pursue with this in mind.
21st Century educators, especially in the 21st year of the 21st Century must be enthusiastic lifelong learners who share and spread their enthusiasm for lifelong learning.
The NEP 2020 emphasises learning how to learn and lifelong learning…. learning about the Quantum World is a good way of doing this.
Phrases like Quantum Jump are part of everyday vocabulary now. On 12th May 2020, the PM said “ the country needs an economy that brings quantum jump, not incremental change.”
Earlier in the budget in February 2020, the FM made an allocation of Rs 8000 crores for a National Mission on Quantum Technologies.
So if you want to benefit from the opportunities in this field for your students, children or grandchildren, you must start to appreciate the magic of the Quantum World. Watch this video : The trillion dollar Quantum gold rush : https://youtu.be/wKN8wBl4X1M
Quantum technologies will impact, not just a few, but like the Internet have a universal effect. China has already made progress with the Quantum Internet.
To have a glimpse of what the future has in store, please watch this webinar (1 hour 40 minutes). There are some glitches during the first 3 minutes of the video. But the webinar on Quantum Readiness (1 hour 40 minutes) : https://youtu.be/U5XZL5F0vwE is very informative and timely.
To know more and to pursue a one month awareness course on Quantum Technologies visit : https://mmpant.com/qt4fr/
